Elementals
by wherefore-suchas
Summary: 7 elements of the criminal kind , 2 crime fighters, 1 AWOL Batman - different perspectives.
1. Heart of Earth

**Elementals**

disclaimer: Not mine. Never will be. Money made from this: zero dollars.

(brief) author's note: I borrow from comics continuity in this story, just a little bit. Long and short: you may feel a slight confused sensation if you don't know what Selina Kyle did before she became Catwoman in the comics. It's not a vital piece of knowledge, however.

*******

**Heart of Earth**

earth stirred

from core to cover--

spring songs

-- Richard MacDonald

Five to 10 tons of animal life can live in an acre of soil.

*******

You never know what's beneath the surface. Spring comes to Gotham each year just like anyplace else. As much as certain people pretend that it never happens, because it's easier to think of the city as the eternal dark. The seasons change differently, that's all. Light seeps down into the canyons between buildings in a gray wash. Slippery and snakelike, the city sheds its skin and inches toward the light.

I used to wait anxiously for the transformation and I was rewarded with the transformation of myself as well. My mistake was to try to mold myself before it was my time to be renewed. I realize this until I catch sight of my face in a mirror. All I need is a bit of reflection--a sliver of my face trapped against a mirror's silver surface--and the anger comes back. It was never my fate to be so ugly.

In the time before the accident, I could have had my pick of any woman I wanted. They fell for me so easily it was just like knocking down dominoes. I lost myself in the tangles of their hair fanned out across the pillows on my bed or in the space where their hips met their waists. I was the king of a narrow kingdom, but that never bothered me before. I can see that smallness now, but my heart still breaks for it and for the realization that I'd do anything to bury myself in it again.

Tonight I might have killed a woman. She was a beautiful slip of a thing with great, blue eyes that seemed wiser than she did. I was hidden in the deep shadows at the end of an alley, so she didn't see me as she passed. Maybe it was the way her breasts pressed into her sweater, or the way she swung her hips in her navy wool pants or the snatch of honeysuckle perfume. It was a lot of things. I compressed myself into a shape I thought she might like--that was intimate, trying to imagine the flow of desire inside her pretty head--and followed her into a coffee shop.

My forehead was sweating from the effort of holding myself in shape. I wiped it and little clods of flesh colored mud fell away. I slid into the booth behind the woman. She didn't notice me at first; she was engrossed in a textbook.

"Excuse me," I said, "could I get a few packets of sugar from you? I'm all out over here."

Her eyes flicked to my face, registering approval. She also saw my full container of sugar and a small wrinkle appeared on her forehead.

"Why don't you just come and sit with me?" she suggested. Her voice was a lovely, mid-range alto. She didn't have to ask me twice. "Your face looks familiar," she mused as I was settling myself.

"I think I'd remember if we'd met before," I said, falling into the rhythm easily. There's a knack to talking with women--witty but not overbearing. "You are...?"

She shook her head and strands of her hair fell across her face. "I'm sure you seem familiar. Aren't you that actor?"

I started back. I was out of practice making faces. It was possible that I'd reverted to my old one. After all, it's the one I'd been most accustomed to. "My name's Joe," I said, trying to sound confused. "Look, I'll be right back, okay?" I got up and headed for the back of the restaurant. My idea was to pretend I was going to the bathroom and then slip out the back door.

The woman was waiting for me in the alley. "I wouldn't go anywhere just yet, Clayface." Her voice was harder now and her legs were braced in a fighting stance.

I laughed a little and relaxed. My body expanded into its normal shape and then it happened. I saw it in her eyes, just an instant and then it was gone, but it was enough: revulsion. All I'd meant to do was knock her out and leave her in the alley, but when I saw that disgust in her face I couldn't stop myself.

She was quick and landed a few hits that stung. My body reached out and wrapped itself around her, crushing her into my chest. I could feel her there. She was closed up inside me, her lungs choked on my flesh. Just as I'd had Batman there in the past, I could feel her heartbeat slowing.

When I came right up against it, I couldn't kill her. It's as if I fell back into myself at some point and felt the horror of what I had been doing. I spit her out, dripping, and fled. My footsteps made squishy sounds in the alley. There were shouts in the distance. A distressed male voice calling, "Barbara!"


	2. Heart of Flesh

**Heart of Flesh**

Sake for flesh, haiku for soul:

Sake is the haiku of the flesh

Haiku is the sake of the soul.

-- Santoka Taneda

Every 24 hours, the surface of the skin sheds a layer of dead cells, constantly renewing about every 28 days.

*******

In springtime, my hearing becomes more acute, my senses sharper. My body wakes from its winter hibernation. How often, when I was a little girl, did I wish for super powers like the man in Metropolis? How often, when I sold my body to survive, did I wish for those powers again? My body would become strong to hurt those who hurt me and the people I cared about. Today I want to go back and tell those two former selves that super powers don't make you strong, they only make you lazy.

I leapt off the neighboring building, stretching my body in the warm spring air. My whip snagged a flagpole at the right moment and I landed securely on a window ledge. It was a matter of seconds before I was inside. I'd gone to case the place in the daylight hours, full of inquiries. It's harder for men to remember an inquisitive woman. They think we're programmed to ask idle questions when we can't think of anything else to say. The guard I'd talked to hadn't known what to do with his hands, he kept kneading them together and then shoving them in the direction of his pockets only to realize that his uniform didn't have pockets at all. I smiled at that memory even as I removed part of the windowpane, careful not to set off the alarm. The diamond was in a case across the room. I could see it shining in the dim light.

"I thought I might find you here, Catwoman," the voice rumbled in my ear. A ripple of excitement ran along my arms. Batman and I danced on either side of a mirror, but some nights we almost touched and that was invariably exciting.

"The night just got interesting," I murmured. I looked at him. "Oh, it's only you."

Robin's lips tightened fractionally. "Sorry to disappoint."

"Where is he?"

"You don't have the right to ask."

I considered him for a moment. He was a strange accompaniment to Batman's unrelieved black. I had always figured that he kept Robin around as some kind of wisecracking, brightly-colored decoy. More pertinent to my situation, he was an unknown quantity. "So Batman's letting you take the car out on your own these days?"

"Why don't you try me?" he replied tightly.

"Where's your little girlfriend?"

"I'm not her keeper."

I looked him up and down; making sure my appraisal was obvious. "No. You never will be either." The whole time we'd been talking, I'd adjusted my angle ever so slightly. I silently added things up. All I needed was for him to be a little off-balance, which he was already, but I wasn't sure if it was enough.

"Are you gonna come quietly, or do I have to do this the hard way?"

I fixed him with a stare and licked my lips slowly. "Hmmm, hard or soft--isn't that your choice?" I was practically purring at him. He didn't react at first, but then blinked twice. That's when I knew I had him. I put my hand on the middle of his chest and shoved. He stumbled backwards into a display case, breaking it and falling to the ground in a shower of glass. The alarm blared. I raced across the room, barely feeling my feet hit the ground, smashed the case and grabbed the diamond. I dropped it into my hip pouch where it nestled in the hollow of my thigh, banging softly as I ran. By that time, Robin had regained his footing. He came at me, but I swiped at him, scratching his face without breaking my stride. Two more steps and I was out the window, flying through the night air as if I'd been born there.

Once I'd put several rooftops between me and the jewelry store, I relaxed. The rest of the trip home was a breeze. I dawdled on fire escapes as the first slivers of light peeked down through the buildings.


	3. Heart of Fire

**Heart of Fire**

no oil in the lamp--

after a year's flickering,

the flame slowly dies.

-- anonymous

The hottest flames known to science are made by burning a mixture of oxygen and acetylene. The flame of an oxyacetylene torch can reach a temperature of more than 5972 degrees Fahrenheit, hot enough to melt metal even underwater or in the extreme cold of Antarctica.

*******

I watch him as he watches her. The expression is partially obstructed by the mask he wears, but I can see it just the same. If ever I saw that look on my Beloved's face I would tear his heart out and leave it for the buzzards, but only if it were not directed at me. The interesting thing is: he doesn't know how to show her that look I see so plainly. His body is awkward around hers-- acting as a shield, but in the same moment drawing away.

I drape my legs over the arm of the chair and concoct wild stories to explain his behavior. She moves gingerly at times, then forgets herself in feats of daring. The outer defenses are still holding against them. The sun will be fully risen soon; the desert will lose its purplish cast. Nothing survives long under the weight of Saharan sunlight. In my idle moments, I wonder if there is a way to concoct a device to focus the power of that light. Weapons of mass destruction were never really my strength, only Father's.

"They are persistent," I say to the man on the table.

"They know better than to give up," he mumbles through lips cracked with thirst.

"It will be the death of them."

"It's their choice."

"Is it?" I look at him intently. He is stripped of everything but the cowl. I was particularly careful to remove anything he might use to escape, including some subcutaneous lock picks. I found them in his wrists, to the left of the rope of veins running there. They looked like track marks. He didn't cry out when I took them out of him. He didn't even twitch. I think in some perverse way he likes the pain. It's penance for some awful thing I can't begin to imagine.

He closes his eyes then, but not before I see them muddy with uncertainty.

Outside, the two fight on. Their movements are slower now and he is less conscious of her presence. That's when the most interesting thing happens. They come together like two fitted puzzle pieces. Side-by-side they are as graceful as synchronized swimmers. I catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye and I whip my head around. My Beloved is...smiling. That smile chills me more than anything because there is no joy in it, just satisfaction at a job well done.

"Wind them up and they will go," I say to him, surprising myself with the bitter note that emerges.

"You don't understand."

"Do _they_?"

"Well enough."

I don't know how he can be so sure. On the monitor they look young and fragile. I close one eye and hold out my thumb and index finger, crushing them. "How can you tell?"

"I know them."

On the monitor, they have finished with the first wave of defenses. I watch him as he watches her. He touches her hand briefly. Their fingers make arcing wings before they part. "_I_ would not be so sure."

His face settles back into its familiar, grim lines. Silence sinks on top of us, heavy and burning like sand.


	4. Heart of Water

**Heart of Water**

the gift of water

lies within itself running

fresh and always new

--Peter S. Quinn

One mathematician has calculated that if Columbus spilled a glass of water into the sea back in 1492 and if that glass of water was by now thoroughly mixed in all the oceans and rivers of the world, then every glass of water drawn from every faucet in the world would contain as many as 250 molecules from the original water Columbus spilled.

*******

People often ask me: "Oswald, do you miss the villainy?" To which, I always reply, with a magnanimous air: "As Penguin, I risked becoming a caricature of myself. As Oswald, no one thinks of risk." This invariably elicits a polite twittering of laughter. As much as I covet a position with the movers and shakers of Gotham, as much as their patronage sustains the Iceberg Lounge, giving me the necessary funds to hire accomplished ice sculptors and gelato- makers and whatnot, their senses of humor often seem woefully underdeveloped.

Indeed, no one has worked harder than I to make the nightclub a success. It is my precious, precocious child--all gleaming stainless steel and artfully placed mirrors. Glitter reflects inside its silver surface, making everyone appear more glamorous than they truly are.

The police often ask me: "What are your dealings with Rupert Thorne?" To which, I always reply: "Few and aboveboard, gentlemen. Would you care for a martini?" Truly, it would be rude of them to reject such a gentlemanly offer and, as yet, none of them have.

Business is slow in the middle of the week and Wednesday night was no exception. I counted only three and a half celebrities. That half belonged to Richard Grayson--I do not consider him much more than a glorified hanger-on, but he is ward to one of the world's richest men.

I greeted him with the proper measure of respect. "Mr. Grayson! What a pleasure to see you! You and your lovely companion. Miss...?"

"_Ms._ Gordon. Barbara." She flashed me a quick smile.

"Ah, Gordon. Of course. You wouldn't, by chance, be any relation to..."

"My father."

I considered it wiser to keep the couple moving. "Right this way, please. It's always such a pleasure to see you here, Mr. Grayson," I said, leading them around tables, across the empty dance floor. "And your guardian? How is he? _He_ hasn't been in here for nearly four months. The last time was with Ms. Kyle, I believe." I let my nose wrinkle just a bit at that. It was the worst kept secret in town that Selina Kyle doubled as Catwoman in her copious spare time; a lesser known secret was what she used to do to earn money before burglary turned her into a philanthropist. She lacked an essential class.

"Bruce is out of town on business," Dick said cheerfully. "I hope he comes back soon. Alfred and I are knocking around the mansion without much of anything to do."

"I'm sure you have the lovely, Ms. Gordon to keep you company."

Only Dick blushed at that. Barbara regarded me steadily. I suppose I hadn't won any points for the "Miss." Damn women's lib.

"Ah. Well..."

"Forget I said anything." I pulled out their chairs for them and backed away. "Enjoy."

If you want to succeed in the restaurant business, you learn to perfect the art of hovering--not in some obvious or intrusive way, just remaining at the fringes of conversation, senses twitching to anticipate the customer's every need before he knows he has it.

As soon as they thought I was safely out of earshot, Barbara hit Dick's shoulder lightly.

"What was that for?" he complained.

"All-purpose," she murmured. "He gives me the creeps. It gives me the creeps to be out on the town when Bruce is...I mean..."

He covered her hand with his. I think she had her other hand on his knee under the table. Young love can't stop caressing itself, even in the depths of some unspecified personal crisis. The evening was becoming very interesting indeed.

"Don't worry, Babs."

"I'm not that worried. Not really. He'll come back in due time. But _you_ seem almost too calm." She stopped and considered him. I knew the look: gently probing, the kind that leaves one feeling as if he has just been smoothly stripped of all affectations and bravado. She rested her cheek on her palm before continuing. "You're so like him sometimes. Hard to read."

"I don't know if I'd put it that way myself," Dick replied. There was an odd edge to his voice that I couldn't quite place. I assumed they were talking about Wayne and I wondered if Dick resented the comparison to the empty-headed playboy.

Barbara shook her head, strands of red hair falling across her cheeks in a most becoming manner. The effect was not lost on Dick. "I don't want to talk about him anymore tonight, okay?"

"What would you like to talk about instead?"

"Isn't that a bit 'Monty Python' of you?" His response was a puzzled look. "That sketch where the couple go into the restaurant and the server brings them a topic to talk about?"

"'Meaning of Life' wasn't it?"

"I think so."

"I see you have brought the machine that goes 'ping'!" he quoted neatly. Barbara chuckled and I drifted back into the room.


	5. Heart of Air

**Heart of Air**

At the candle's light,

I look, and yes,

There is a wind.

-- Hester Hamilton

Chinook -- Refers to the warm downslope wind in the Rocky Mountains that may occur after an intense cold spell when the temperature could rise by 20 to 40 degrees Fahrenheit in a matter of minutes. Also known as the Snow Eater.

*******

Last night I met, upon the stair, a little man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today, oh how I wish he'd go away.

I am stalked by that man, only he isn't little at all. He's as broad as the night and twice as fearsome. The Batman. Lately he has turned into that man-- he isn't here. He hasn't been here for weeks as far as I can tell. I test him every night, trying to see how far I can poke my hollow head out of the ground before a bit of my hair is sliced off.

The rope around my neck swung gently and the heavy hangman's knot banged into my arm. Things were changing around this place, now that the Batman was gone. And the kids he hung out with...no sign of them either. My heart was light in my chest. This was better than Christmas.

Each night was a new possibility. Thus far, I had conducted experiments at the docks (two subjects drowned, one by his own hand) and along the fringes of the red light district (four subjects). Tonight was icing--the subway at midnight. Anything can happen there, they'd say, without really expecting anything to happen at all.

"But what if something _did_ happen, my lovelies? What would you do then? You would choke in your own fear until it drowned you right there in the plain air."

I plunged the hypodermic into the vial, drawing out the exact amount of liquid I needed. I didn't need much. The agent was airborne. Truthfully, a few molecules would have done, but I was eager to see what a more intense dosage would accomplish. I stumbled across the formula one evening when I was trying to make a double-strength batch of my standard fear serum. What was most fascinating about this particular mixture--apart from its potency--was that its effect was negation. Neither the increase nor decrease of fear as I'd studied in the past, only the simple, powerful impression that the subject was alone in the world. It was enough, I'd discovered, to make even the most confirmed misanthrope teeter over that knife's edge into screaming terror. Deny the world as much as you like, but what if there suddenly isn't anyone in the world to deny?

Several well-placed bombs did the trick. There was something satisfying about seeing the canisters strapped in place with neatly cut bands of tape. Midnight seemed as good a time as any for the test, but it could have just as well been 11:21 or 8:46 or 9:17. As long as everything was recorded neatly for posterity, who was I to quibble over the precise timing of the thing? That's for obsessive-compulsive control freaks like the Clock King. Those things didn't bother me.

11:48 PM: last test subjects boarded the train at Willow Avenue stop; eight of them--five men and three women all between the ages of 20 and 45

11:55 PM: assistants sealed door between last two cars and rest of train to prevent gas leakage (NOTE: end door and all windows sealed prior to this)

11:58 PM: two subjects appeared suspicious; one (Caucasian male, dark hair, 22) discovered one of the canisters, his companion (Caucasian female, red hair, 22) attempted to open the windows (NOTE: fear in their faces--delicious)

11:59 PM: all six canisters discovered, subjects in uproar; original discoverers attempt to break windows; cracks appear in door between my car and theirs

12:00 AM: experiment initiated; gas leakage into my car

Oh. God.

My head was hollow and the wind screamed through it. After all, I was the straw man. The hollow man. The man and the woman stood over me, but then they disappeared and I was alone.

Sometimes, I'm still alone. Figures come and go; sometimes through doors, sometimes fading like ghosts into the walls.


	6. Heart of Ice

**Heart of Ice**

ice crackles

beneath booted feet

walking home

--Frank A. Hayden

Water, being a liquid, is a disordered phase, while ice is an ordered phase - the molecules are arranged in close packed layers (a lattice) not unlike a box full of Ping-Pong balls

*******

Human times are a spring thaw to me--when compassion brings me close to the man I once was. He is the man I want to be, for Nora's sake. When she wakes up, I want everything to be comfortable and familiar to her. I want everything as it was, not evil or cruel or hard. If I could just have a moment to myself at these times, I believe that I might be able to crack the thinned ice.

She got in three quick kicks before I managed to toss her off. Funny how it's never really occurred to me that the Batman might have trained her. There's something about her movements that's always seemed too different from his--a joy in motion that he lacks. She flew backwards, turning as she did so, landed on her feet. "Bravo," I wanted to say, because something in her tenacity always reminded me a bit of Nora, but the words froze in shards inside my mouth. Instead, I pointed my ice gun at her and fired. She dodged, but not easily.

Cold makes even the best of athletes sluggish. I tried to remember what that felt like--the air burning spreading channels in my lungs or the way I used to gasp to take in oxygen. Her breath steamed fast from her mouth.

"You were doing so well, Victor," she told me. "Your doctors said you were responding beautifully to their treatments. Why throw that away?"

I shook my head. "You couldn't understand." I fired again.

"What couldn't I understand?" That last shot had thrown off her rhythm. She was teetering at the edge of exhaustion, but I found that I wanted to keep her there a little longer. Stretches in Arkham didn't do any favors for my conversational skills.

"How I need Nora like breathing," I might have said once. The ice had thinned and I stretched out my hand to push against it. "Nora is my life. If she dies... If I can't save her..."

"You think I don't know how to care for anyone?"

"Look at you." My voice had an edge that she recoiled from. "Look at what you do every night. Who can understand that?" She did her best to look impassive, but I saw her hands clench. "You have a secret from everyone you'll ever meet."

"That's not true...I..."

My finger slipped easily onto the trigger and I fired again. She rolled; the beam glanced over her heel. She staggered to her feet. "Why don't I just put you out of your misery?" The words slid unbidden from my mouth. I wanted to apologize for their cruelty. I felt the apology welling up inside me-- deliciously warm. I pushed and the ice cracked a bit, but stayed intact. Her good foot came into contact with my stomach and the air went out of me. I fell hard on one knee, spikes of pain running up my thigh. She punched me in the neck and I saw white spots dancing.

I managed to raise a foot and get her bad leg. She cried out once, a sharp sound that wasn't quite a scream. I lurched upright, aimed and fired. Her right arm was trapped under a dome of ice.

That's when I was hit from behind. He'd come in fast and silent, faster and almost as silent as his mentor. Pain exploded in the small of my back. My gun flew out of my hand. The spots multiplied until they became a blizzard. Through the storm I saw him kneel and stroke her face with a tenderness that was almost too painful to watch. Perspiration beaded and froze on her forehead. He brushed it off with one gloved fingertip.


	7. Heart of Wood

**Heart of Wood**

The tree's branches sway

The leaves ripple in the wind

The trunk sits quite still

--Derrick Charles

Wood is light and strong--softwoods are 16 times less dense than steel and 5 times less dense than concrete. As a result of wood's strength-to-weight ratio, buildings made of wood can weigh an eighth as much as similar buildings made of brick or concrete.

*******

I ain't immune to romance. The charms of the fairer sex ain't lost on me. In my line of work, you don't meet stand-up dames every day, but that doesn't mean that I don't think how nice it might be to have a gun moll watchin' my back. When the most eligible chick you've meet in the past three years is the bat- chick, well...

We was pullin' a job down by the docks last Wednesday night. Little-known fact: Gotham's boys in blue got their hands full with hump-day revelers come Wednesdays. DUIs, DWIs, public nudity, general lewdness, they got no reason to bust up my little operations then. I've pulled some great jobs on Wednesday night. That particular night, me and the boys were nosin' in on some of Rupert Thorne's action. I try not to lock horns with Thorne straight on, at least not until the organization gets bigger. No sense biting off more than you can chew. We just take a job here and there. Thorne's got deep pockets; he can eat it.

Someone musta got wind of our plans I guess, 'cause before you can say "Jim Gordon," bat-chick and bird-boy are all over us like a cheap suit. I winged him in the shoulder with the Tommy gun, but he just kept coming. Then she looks over and sees the blood and I know she wants to stop right then and fix him up okay and I say to Dummy, "I didn't know bat-chick was sweet on him." He says something back that I don't catch, except for the "Mr. Scarface" part. He's gotten real good at pronouncin' it ever since I clocked him one for forgettin' it.

So then the only thing to do is shoot him for real. I figure I get him, I take them both down. As much of a pain in the ass as she is, the bat-chick is a real stand up babe. She won't abandon her man for the small-time like me an' Dummy. Meanwhile, the boys had beat a hasty retreat. Ya just can't keep thugs around when the bat-guys show up.

Anyways, so bird-boy's up and running and I let him get real close before I decked him one real good and he went down like he was filled with lead or somethin'. From where I was standin' the shoulder looks real bad, all dark and bloody. I figure he don't have long till he passes out from the blood alone. I shot him in the thigh for good measure.

I ain't no killer. In certain circumstances, yeah. If it'd been the Batman I'd have helped him with his dirt nap no problem, but the kid? He was young an' like I said I ain't immune to romance. If he and the bat-chick were sweet on each other who was I to stand in their way? Killing Robin ain't no feat. Killing Batgirl ain't no feat. But maybe them alive and together that's some kinda miracle.

He yelled to beat the band when I shot him. "You ain't dyin', ya big baby," I snarled. He sucked a breath in through his teeth and glared at me. "I could still kill ya."

"Come on, Mr. Scarface. We better be going." I hated to admit it, but Dummy was right.

But I misjudged the bat-chick. I guess I always figgered she was more chick than bat. She came after me, harder than if I hadn't shot bird-boy. Dummy went down and took me with him. My chin bounced into the concrete and I blacked out for awhile. I heard handcuffs snap.

"You okay, Robin?" she asked. Her voice was a little shaky.

"Yeah." He was tired, dog tired and I think she was too; either way she yanked me to my feet.

"Hospital?"

"Nah."

"Pizza?"

Like the man says: it ain't what they said, just how they said it. I resolved to get myself a right hand gal, just as soon as that shylock, Reggie sprung me from the slammer.

fin.


End file.
